Florida Looks To Take Care Of 'Unfinished Business' as ALC Play Begins

The Florida Gators starters stood on the sideline, watching on as the second team, full of underclassmen, took care of an overmatched Stetson Hatters team 22-1 on March 19, 2013.

That win capped off a perfect non-conference season with a 12-0 record, the first time in the program’s history. Though there was smiles up and down the sideline that game, the Gators were not close to being satisfied.

The team won’t have satisfaction until it wins a national championship, which is something it fell short of in the Final Four last season against Syracuse.

This is why all the Florida starters wore an identical white t-shirt that had each player’s individual number on it and a simple slogan:

Unfinished business.

This mantra is what the coaching staff and the players of the Florida Gators deemed as the definition of their 2013 season.

The “unfinished business” refers to a few different things, but three specific goals can be pinpointed for the ’13 campaign.

The first goal was beating the North Carolina Tar Heels. After playing this top-tier squad three years in a row, the Gators never came away with a win.

On Feb. 9, the Gators opened the season in Chapel Hill, N.C., and they came away with a well-fought 5-3 win.

Beat UNC: Check.

The second goal was redeeming themselves from the physical and emotional draining loss to Syracuse in the Final Four, allowing a seven-goal lead slip through their hands.

At Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida took care of ‘Cuse by a score of 14-10.

“I told them to savor the win because they deserve it,” said Florida coach Amanda O’Leary after the game.

Beat the Orange: Check.

Those two goals were conciliation prizes, though, for the actual driving force for this Florida team.

“The phrase "unfinished business" is more about us, and how we didn’t finish what we wanted — a national championship,” senior attacker Gabi Wiegand said.

With 12 of its 31 players seniors, Florida is hungry for the ultimate title, and those seniors will not settle for anything less.

Midway through the season, Florida and its senior class could not be in a better position.

Florida’s squad has a perfect 13-0 record only one game into American Lacrosse Conference play. Five of those wins came against top-20 opponents.

The Gators’ defense has been impeccable thus far with a stellar 5.77 goals allowed per game average. Anchored by seniors Sam Farrell, Jamie Reeg, Emily Dohony and Kayla Stolins, the Gators have forced their opponents to a meager shot percentage of .355 on 211 total shots.

That is also credit to senior goalkeeper Mikey Meagher and her .520 save percentage, which ranks in the top 10 in the country. She also logged over 620 minutes, which is 140 minutes more than any other goalie in the top 10.

Oh, and the offense is pretty good too.

Florida is ranked in the top 10 nationally with 14.77 goals per game. The contributions have come from all over the place, including six players with double-digit goals.

Sophomore Shannon Gilroy leads the team with 34 goals followed by senior attacker Kitty Cullen with 29.

“We are able to use every single player on our offense,” Cullen said, “And that’s what separates us from [other teams] this year.”

Currently ranked at No. 2 in the nation, the Florida Gators, on paper, are in the exact position they need to be.

But O’Leary doesn’t see it that way.

“I don't think we are nearly where we need to be,” O’Leary said. “We are not ready for the postseason, that's for sure. I think every team at this point midway through the season is constantly reevaluating their defense and their attack.”

She has a 13-0 team, one of the most explosive offenses and one of the few hard-nosed defenses in the nation, and O’Leary is still not satisfied?

What possibly can this Florida squad do to improve before the ALC Tournament and, more importantly, the NCAA Tournament? Well, two distinct issues do stick out.

First: Florida’s shooting percentage.

The Gators are averaging .481 shot percentage on the season, which is close to the 50 percent mark that assistant coach Erica LaGrow set for the offense at the beginning of the season, but if you analyze game by game, it’s clear that the Gators are consistently inconsistent.

Seven of their 13 games sported a below .500 mark. Since the Gators inaugural season in 2010, 13 of Florida’s 15 losses came when the Gators shot below 50 percent for the match.

What clouds this statistic is the 30.7 shots per game Florida can force. If Florida finds a team that can limit its shots, the Gators will find themselves in trouble.

Second: Hitting lulls.

The Gators continue to find themselves in a spot where they let their opponent go on a string of two or three goals in a row, or where the offense can’t convert a shot.

Most recently in the Ohio State game, the Gators went 21 minutes with 11 shots but no goal to begin the game. Of course, some credit is given to the resilience of OSU’s goalie Tori DeScenza with five saves in that time, but that’s something Florida can’t do.

Game in and game out, the Gators find themselves in a position struggling to find the back of the net for a 5- to 10-minute stretch.

“Hitting that lull… We have to fix that,” O’Leary said. “We can find ourselves in a deep deficit if we get into that again.”

But to reiterate, these are small problems to have, and O’Leary knows her team has a lot to fix over the next few weeks.

The mantra of unfinished business for her doesn’t apply to the entire season but each and every day out on the field.

“When they say unfinished business, I think they mean every single game,” O’Leary said. “I think they always have a game to win, so it's going to be game-by-game and practice-by-practice.”